Dell, the PC company that's been criticized by competitors for performing little of its own independent research, is gearing up to make a greater mark in the scientific world--through clustering.

The Austin, Texas-based company and The University at Buffalo, the State University of New York (SUNY Buffalo) on Tuesday will unveil a cluster of 2,008 Dell PowerEdge servers running Red Hat Linux. Researchers will use the cluster to study the structure and orientation of human proteins, a crucial step in finding cures for many diseases. The Buffalo cluster, one of the largest of its kind in the world, is the latest in a string of high-tech projects for upstate New York.